ARMANDO, ALL
>I have a very distinct (and pleasant)memory of
>the Cutty Sark story (and, for that matter, also of Don's "The Duck Who Fell
>To Earth", which was featured on the same ZP 112 ;-))
OK, I hope Don will excuse me if I once again use references to his
work as a springboard for one of my (luckily rare) rants... :-)
First of all, I can't resist :-) , my own fave is "A Matter of Some
Gravity", too, but is that "just" plain slapstick ?
I mean, does it make any sense to divide an authors work into "genre"
slots ? I like Don's style of storytelling and drawing, whether he
does Lo$, treasure hunts or slapsticks, and possibly even better when
he does mix it all together... a story I'm surprised nobody mentioned
(or maybe I missed that) is "The Duck That Never Was", my own second
best (I'm a Capra fan, too), what "genre" would that be ?
Parody, maybe, but anyway it doesn't fit much into any "schematic"
approach to Don's work...
Also, among the Lo$ chapters, the "Cutty Sark" one is my favourite,
for various reasons, among which, I admit, its ambience, I spent a few
months in Indonesia long time ago, and loved it (hello, Arie, apa
kabar ? :-) and the *slapstick* parts of it made me laugh my head off...
How could anybody isolate those ingredients from a story, and try
to make a serial product out of a single one of them ?
Mind you, I quite enjoyed a few shorts as well, like the "Wrecked Car"
or "Master Landscapist" ones, but having *only* this kind of stories
published because the long and intricated ones are not well accepted
by the readers themselves is something that caught me totally by
surprise, I find it quite hard to believe...
Don surely is not in the challenge for presidential elections in
Finland because of "Master Landscapist", as good as it was... :-)
I wonder whether Byron Erickson and/or his close collaborators take
this kind of decisions themselves, or there's a marketing section
that rules...
I hope, for the sake of my Scandinavian and German friends, they would
take in consideration the idea of at least publishing long stories Don
would make in the future as extras or albums...
>Well, tastes are tastes... I won't worry, as long as Don is able to keep
>writing the story he likes himself, for one publisher or the other ;-)
I do worry, though... there're not many Disney publishers left on this
planet, even less actually *produce* stories...
How long would be Don, or anyone else at that, be able to follow their
own inspiration rather than marketing research lists of figures ?
Well, sorry, folks, it seems I'm in a pessimistic mood right now, but
this piece of news saddened me nearly as much as Gladstone closing shop
did, although it seems I'll be one of the few lucky fellows who will be
able to keep reading Don's long stories in a language they can understand
(hoping it won't be Greece *only* :-)...
It's the matter of principle that worries me, and I don't see any silver
lining in this cloud...
Cheers
Eta Beta